en lux p e r p e t u a
by unexpectedrevelations
Summary: He is her universe, claiming her heart in a sweet-smelling torrent of organ music. She lurks somewhere in the shadowy place of his mind, a glittering cadenza snaking out to loop round and round his soul. / A tale of lost love. / LyellTitania.


**Author's Note: **Man this was fun to write. I must say that I do know music and that it's better than almost anything to write about. But anyways, I think I wrote this to give this girl some soul. I mean, reading that section where she admits to loving Lyell doesn't matter so much at the time because you just found out she's a witch, right? But reading into her pain at losing her love, you almost feel sorry for her. We always hear about Lyell being this great guy—but how can someone _this _built up as a character hurt someone like that? Well, this is my take on it.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Charlie Bone.

* * *

_en lux __**p e r p e t u a**_

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_because everything tastes_

_like music_

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_**I: d o l c e **__[sweet]_

Her mother's name is Mara.

Her father doesn't have one.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

She always said that he had been cruel. She told her that she had only married him out of desire, lust, passion, the undiluted brimstone of wild-ride emotions. She said that he had hated his daughter as soon as he looked at her. She said that one night he twisted her wrist and hair in her sleep and pressed a fiery kiss to her neck, then unfolded to stand, spine erect, and walk out of the house for good.

Mara told her it had been her father who dropped her out a second-story window at the age of three, forever damaging her left leg.

"That bastard deserved what he got," smirks Mara now, as she runs her long fingers over a basket of elderberries. "We get on fine without him, don't we, darling?"

Privately, Titania suspects that Mara loved him.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

At five, she can bewitch a butterfly into a bee and back again by merely batting her eye. At seven, she succeeds in enchanting her blonde Barbie doll to life (it struts for hours around the flat, delighting Titania to no end, until Mara snaps it up and takes it away. She never sees it again). At nine, she forces the mangy alley cat they call _Spindleshanks _to drown itself in the city sewer, and sobs mercilessly when she cannot bring it back to life.

At eleven, she attempts to call her father home to her. She stands for hours in the corners of the scattered yard, chanting in a strange and elfin tongue that comes to her on the spur of the moment. Her high, clear voice spins magic out of the foreign words until they explode to the surrounding sky as she sings. Tears roll down her face like perfect glass marbles and her thin arms and legs flail in the tumultuous wind as if she is no more than a paper doll; and still she keeps trying.

Titania tries and tries and tries _a_ _thousand times, _but her father never comes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

On the eve of Titania's twelfth birthday, her mother brings her to the coven meeting she attends every full moon. The women call themselves _Daughters of Lilith, _and they praise her comely face and feather-long blond eyelashes, petting her hair and prodding her in the ribs like she is an animal let out to play. They are strange, these women—strange and beautiful, with long, tangled hair, and hungry eyes lolling about in their heads hither and thither.

They form a circle and clasp hands, succumbing to the primal spark of magic lying dormant within. Eyelids dangle shut and sweet darkness overtakes and she is _so _afraid until she feels the warmth beginning to grow in her abdomen. Titania can feel it burrowing up through her belly and up her throat, stilling at her pretty mouth to lie beneath her tongue. Soon, they are all biting their chapped lips to keep from screaming, nearly ripping at the seams with heady anticipation.

One by one, they open their mouths and speak. The runes enchant the circle of women, spinning round through their ears into their heads to twirl some more with the empty-headed dust within until they are simply drunk on magic. Mara squeezes Titania's hand when it comes her turn, and Titania's mouth all at once doesn't want to open. She bites her lower lip so hard it bleeds, only letting go to release the cry of pain.

The song flows out from deep within her, out from her heart and soul. She sings, and the women coax toward her touch, lazy, slow smiles of rapture on their faces; the fireflies grow fatter and hum about her flushed cheeks; the trees reach for her like great leafy arms; the wind ambles close and ruffles her hair.

Finally, blessedly, it ends, and she is trembling, petrified. Mara reaches for her in a dizzy state of proud awe, but she pushes her away, clutching her knees to her chest and gnawing on her lips until the blood falls like tears. The women smile at her, their strange eyes wide, and she wants to _runrunrun_ away and never come back.

_They are crazy, _she thinks, and she realizes that she is the only one among them who can claim to possess magic at all.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Before she goes to the academy on the hill, Mara comes flying out from behind a wall with a pair of silver shears and grabs her daughter's wrist, plunking her down before the cracked bathroom mirror. _Snip snip _go the scissors, and great clumps of Titania's ash-blond hair fall to the tile floor.

After Mara is finished, Titania stares at her reflection and grasps her short locks, pulling them hard until her scalp burns and her eyes water. Her hair reaches her chin, and all she can think of are the years and years of growing that head of hair until it came to the small of her back.

"You can always tell a daughter of Lilith by her hair," Mara says. "Her hair is her pride. It cannot be cut."

Titania looks at her mother in the mirror and narrows her icy blue eyes accusingly and spits, "You aren't magic at all. You're… crazy. And you know? I bet I'm descended from Lilith through my dad." Mara's lips purse and her eyelids shiver dangerously, and Titania hears the _smack_ before she feels it.

This time, when she looks in the glass, there is a scarlet handprint prominent on her cheek.

Mara leans in and plants her own face in the crook of Titania's shoulder. Her own hair cascades in knotty tangles down her back, and she whispers in Titania's ear and gazes at their ghostly reflections and _smiles. _

After that, Mara doesn't pretend to be magic anymore.

Titania is glad. She walks to Bloor's the next morning, swinging her tiny suitcase, dragging her lame leg, and singing _Scarborough Fair _softly to herself all the way.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_**II: s o r d i n o **__[mute]_

At school, they look her over and toss her a blue cape and some stockings. "You're in music," the man wheezes.

She hadn't known she had auditioned. Titania opens her mouth at once so they can hear her sing, but before she can, they shove a violin in her arms.

"Play it well,"the man proclaims, and she can feel his eyes boring holes in her back all the way down the corridor.

Like bullets: _Bam, Bam. _She wants to whirl about and will his pathetic heart to stop beating.

Then, maybe she'll sing a little opera.

She doesn't. Titania walks down that corridor and never looks back.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The kids tease her.

They call her cripple, freak, witch, sorceress.

She knows their words are true. But they still hurt bad, like needles pricking her skin all over.

That night, she sits in her nightdress in the window seat and watches the moon go by while the eleven other girls slumber, drowsy-dolls with painted faces, ever the same.

Titania blinks furiously to keep away the tears and wishes for the first time in her life that she wasn't _special. _

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Titania doesn't expect to like the violin. At first glance, it is all wrong; all sharp curves and dappled, watermarked wood. The bow is clumsy in her fingers and the instrument fits too snugly under her chin. She can tell that within a few months of playing that it will leave a hideous bruise.

But at the first lesson when she places it on her shoulder_—"There now, tuck your chin down… arm up a bit… yes!"—_and grasps the bow—"_Ah, that's a bit too tight… all right, fingers standing tall, remember your rosin!"—_and draws it across the strings for the very first time, the voice of the thing is perfect: green and sharp and crisp, sort of like a sour apple.

By the end of the first lesson, she has learned the names of the notes and can play a simple scale. By her third, she is playing Bach's minuets, and by the tenth, they are beginning to teach her third position. Playing is magical; fingers moving up-and-down almost of their own accord, left hand caressing the fingerboard to create a lovely vibrato, the bow moving in tandem with her hands and heart all the while.

And by the middle of October, she is convinced that she _loves _playing the violin more than anything else in the world.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

The other girls in her dorm are convinced that Paton Yewbeam, a tall and brooding seventh year, must be the most handsome boy in the academy, not to mention the whole _universe. _They all flock round Titania and jealously clamor for a mention of him, but she protests that she only sits beside him for two hours a night in the King's room_—"So there's nothing to tell." _

Sitting there with her homework, though, Titania has to admit that his dark, slightly shaggy hair curling over his shirt collar does set her heart a-flutter. Her cheeks blaze and she has to tap her toes furiously on the ground to keep herself from spontaneously extinguishing every candle in the room.

One day after homework, Paton scrambles to stuff books into his bag and hurries out the door. Titania, ever curious, follows. She has to sprint to keep up with his long legs. Paton wends his way up a spiral staircase to the top of the music tower. As Titania comes nearer, she can hear the most heavenly sound floating down: piano music, infectious and wild: Rachmaninoff.

She comes to a halt before the door and peers in, searching for the source of the exquisite music. And there, perched on the bench, is gangly Lyell Bone, his whole body moving along with the melody. Up his hands skitter about the keys; crashing down they come for yet another frenzy of chords. Titania takes a flutter of breath to keep from swooning.

Lyell turns towards the door at the end of the piece, hardly acknowledging Paton's polite applause. He stares at Titania for a moment with the biggest blue-green eyes she's ever seen, then winks a single time. Turning back to the piano, he begins another tune, slow and blissful.

Titania slumps down to the stone floor, heart thudding in crazy bewilderment and mouth half open in delight. She covers her eyes with her hands and feels the music course through her body, sure that she may die if Lyell stops playing.

That night, she decides that Lyell is a million times more handsome than his uncle.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Titania hates going home for the weekends. Mara becomes more and more demented as Titania's power grows stronger, until she is not really sure that Mara _wasn't_ magic at all. She always did have a touch of the other world about her; that was certain.

Mara will lie on her bed and stare dreamily up at the ceiling for hours on end. She'll drip opium on her tongue—one, two, and three drops, and fall into a sleep so deep that Titania cannot wake her for days. She likes to go down to the woods and ramble through, picking briars, nettles, and berries, which she leaves in overflowing baskets by the door. Titania sorts through her mother's findings and kisses her cheek if Mara has brought her something useful. She is grateful for the ancient book of runes she has found crouching underneath a pile of cookbooks, and uses it to concoct tricky bits of magic that have less to do with power and more to do with following instructions.

Mara only sits and stares, and sometimes, Titania will catch herself remembering _herself _sitting on the floor, staring at her mother as _she _picked through piles of roots and thorns.

One day, Mara brings her a little crushed bird, and sobs, "My daughter, please, help me breathe life into this poor creature! For I have the power no more. It is yours now."

Titania stares at her mother and takes the bird from her, ignoring Mara's howl of pain as she does so. She kneels to her mother and envelops her in her arms, gently rocking her back and forth.

It seems that she has become the mother, and Mara the daughter; and Titania doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

On rainy days, Titania will walk out of the flat and into the cathedral square, feeling euphoric as the chill cuts through her clothes and soaks through her skin. She thinks it wonderful to have the world to herself, and finds it easier to pretend that she is not a witch when the rain and wind is allowed to toss her about.

One day when the cold is too much to bear, she stumbles through the great cathedral doors for shelter against the cold. There is no sound in there but the swell of an enormous pipe organ, its notes flowing throughout the room and making Titania's heart jump in her chest. She drags herself up the staircase to the organ loft, and peeks through the door.

It is not so much a shock as a thrill when she finds Lyell Bone playing there, his long legs pumping the pedals and his hands and arms always at work.

Titania stops to catch her breath and wraps her arms round herself, counting every rib, and looks and looks and _looks_ at Lyell Bone playing that organ so damn well.

She cannot bear to tear her eyes away from him, and every time she comes back to watch him play, she catches herself falling a little more in love.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_**III: m i s t e r i o s o **__[mysterious]_

The day she finds the scribbled family tree, tracing her lineage all the way back to Lilith, she isn't surprised.

What simply steals the breath out of her lungs is her mother's name connecting her own with the daughter of the Red King.

Titania gasps, and figures in her head, and wonders, and pities her poor, deluded mother.

What's more, she pities herself.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

In the middle of her second year, there is a blizzard to rival no other. The Bloors, being who they are, herd every child out into the cold and latch the doors behind them, leaving them to fend for themselves for a full thirty minutes. Titania huddles under her sapphire cape, standing a short distance away from the Torsson boy, a burly seventh year who serves as an excellent shield against the wind.

A snowball hits her square in the neck as she cowers there, melting quickly and dribbling down her shirt collar, soaking her undergarments. She turns hesitantly and sees Lucian Parvotti, an art student, sitting on a tree branch and holding his sides from laughing at her.

Titania sniffs, sticks her nose in the air, and prepares to waltz away, but before she can, another snowball whizzes past her left earlobe, knocking the Parvotti boy out of the tree. She looks round for her savior, ready with a smile of gratitude, but it melts off her face when she sees Lyell Bone standing with Paton and Venetia Yewbeam, both of whom are smoking cigarettes. Lyell gives her a little wave, and the smile comes rushing back with a vengeance.

When they are finally let inside, she pretends to be listening when Louisa Malecky prattles on about algebra and Paton Yewbeam. Titania cocks her ear and bites her lips in euphoria, and feels her cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

The Friday she comes home and finds Mara lying stark white and unmoving on the bed, Titania screams, half-hoping the sound alone will be enough to wake her. She rushes to her mother's side and spoons around her, feeling Mara's shell of a body cold against her skin. Tears coming unbidden to her eyes, and she wants to shriek again.

"Mummy, mummy, wake for me, please! You've got to, I need you… "

Further and further the night creeps, and Mara never wakes. Titania gives up her pleading and begins to sing, an old lullaby that Mara used to sing to her:

"Hush little baby, don't say a word,

Mama's gonna bring you a mockingbird… "

By the time she gets to _diamond ring, _she is asleep. All through the night her energy flows outward into her mother like the lullaby, and in the morning, her mother smiles at her, cheeks rosy, and asks, "Was I asleep long?"

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

In third year English class, Nat Temmer turns round one day and hands her a folded slip of paper. Titania smiles shyly at him and unfolds it once, twice, three times before smoothing it out on the top of her desk.

_Titania—_

_I see you at the cathedral almost every Sunday, but you've never said hello. If you'd like to hear me play, you're welcome to. _

—_Lyell_

She blushes so fiercely it feels as if her cheeks may ignite, and carefully folds the note back up into eighths before slipping it in the voluminous pocket of her blue cape.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Summer dawns, scorching and hazy, and before long Titania is fifteen years old. Every day she will sit on the roof, eating clover honey off a spoon and singing in an idle, languidly liquid tone.

She doesn't dare go to the cathedral again until the beginning of her fourth year, and by then, she knows that she will never be able to keep herself away.

If she can't have Lyell, she decides, she might as well be dead.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

_**IV: c a n t a b i l e **__[singing]_

On the ninth day of the ninth month, Titania walks to the cathedral again. Today, her leg pains her; every second step feels like knives shooting up her spine. She grits her teeth and smiles happy through the ache, bearing it gladly for him.

Through the doors—_oh, now I am alive again—_and up the stairs she goes, and there _he _is. She notes that he has grown over the summer, becoming still lankier, so now he doesn't have to strain to reach the pedals. His big hands ghost up and down the keys, caressing each note into perfection. Titania holds her breath in satisfaction—it has been _ninety one _days, _eighteen _hours, and _five _minutes since she has seen him last—and she feels, for the _trillionth _time, her heart simply swell with love for him.

But her leg really does _hurt, _and all of a sudden, she loses her hold on the door and slips on the concrete stairwell floor, sprawling across the carpet and into the room. Lyell calmly finishes the piece, then removes his hands from the keys with a slight smile. He hops off the organ bench and strides toward her while she simply stares up at him, and then he _reaches _out his hand—_the very same hand which had played the organ, just a moment ago—_and she takes it, rising up with him in one fluid motion.

They stand together for a while, memorizing the pattern of each other's palms, then he whistles low and says, "You can sing, can't you?"

And he hands her a hymnal and she turns to number 364—_How Great Thou Art—_and Lyell starts up the accompaniment with his right hand, playing a succession of flowing eighth notes with his left. And Titania sings the whole thing through, almost without taking a breath, and he finishes up with her as she sustains the last note as long as she can.

He sits there for a while, breathing lightly, his eyes closed in rapture. Titania watches him admiring her, and she feels like _the happiest girl in the world. _Lyell looks up at her, then whispers, "That's gorgeous."

And even though she knows he's commenting on her voice, she likes to pretend he's talking about _her. _

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

She and Lyell practice every Sunday after that. They don't talk much, and there are many awkwardly long glances and nervous bouts of throat-clearing, but for now, it is enough. They make music unlike any that's ever been heard, and when the old priest of the parish stumbled upon them practicing, he hired them out to be musicians. They play and sing in church every Sunday morning, and although Titania's never been much for religion, she likes the full feeling she gets after walking out those doors and flashing a smile goodbye to Lyell Bone.

One Sunday, she stops by the flower stall and, on impulse, buys a gorgeous calla lily and tucks it into her hair. She is about to walk away when she feels a little tug at the back of her skirt, and she whirls round to see a scrawny little girl with droopy black curls and large green eyes, her jet bangs cut in a sharp line across her forehead. The girl is sobbing, her little face stained pink and her dark lashes all stuck together with tears.

Titania bends down and gives her a hug, holding her frail, shaky body against hers. "Shhhh," she murmurs. "It'll be fine, okay?"

Smiling at the girl, she leads her over to a bench and pulls her onto her lap. "What's your name, honey?"

The girl sniffles, her sobs beginning to subside. "Malia," she gurgles as Titania thrusts her a handkerchief.

"And have you lost your mum?"

Malia laughs. "My mummy left a long time ago. I'm waiting for my Rosie."

Before Titania can ask who Rosie is, Malia bursts into hysterical tears once more, and, swooping off Titania's lap, flings herself at an old woman wearing a red kerchief. The old woman hugs Malia tight to her, whispering harsh words of admonishment and love.

Titania looks at them and wonders if anyone would _care _if she were to go missing.

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Schubert's _Ave Maria _is, without a doubt, the most beautiful piece Titania has ever sung. She _knows _it because, unlike any other piece she sings with Lyell, the best times are not the times when they silence the entire congregation with their music—the best times are those lazy Sunday afternoons, when Lyell cues her with a nod, and she, hugging his smile to her like a basket of sunflowers, wraps her arms round her ribs and sings.

It's magic, this music. It grows up from the tips of their toes and snakes up round their shinbones, bumping up about the knees and bruising hard and sweet at the hips. It dances straight through the stomach, making its way into the filaments of their hearts and up to the tops of their heads, twirling spiral through their bodies like some dizzy lullaby.

It tastes like sugar and fire and wind and soul and ache and sorrow and ecstasy all at once—it's _magic,_ and they never want to let it go.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Titania knows that Denise Reid _may_ be the best alto in Britain, and that she _may _have a voice stolen straight from the throats of angels, and that she _may_ gain the favor of any sane music-boy in the academy with a single, throaty vibration—but that's _no_ reason for her to go fawning over Lyell Bone.

Denise holds his wrist with her claw-like hand, and lets her shirt come open nearly all the way, and leans in _too close _to croon in Lyell's ear, and Titania almost lets out an earsplitting shriek of pain. She thinks it would be beautiful, like ashes and sunlight, higher than any note _she _could ever hope to hit—and she can feel the pressure clamp hard at the ends of her toes, begging her—_Show him what he really wants. _

But she doesn't, for that is not her way. She blatently ignores Lyell as usual, but does not even spare him the slightest glance when everyone else is listening intently to Denise sing this horrible Italian opera piece that Saltweather, new head of music, is entering in the national spring competition. Titania stops her ears firmly up with hypocritical musings, and, after, blazes through her Vivaldi like the bow and fingerboard are on fire.

That night, she sews a little doll of cambric and yarn, painting the eyes like black buttons and the nose like a murky shadow. There is no mouth. She whispers some faint, measured words over its pathetic form and grins to herself in the dark.

The next morning, Denise has lost her voice.

Titania doesn't care. She lopes up to Lyell—"I've got a new piece for us to play,"—and tries to contain her euphoria as he wraps his arm round her waist and lets her drag him up to the tip-top of the music tower.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

By the time she is sixteen, Titania's hair has reached its former glory. For months now she has braided it up tight against her scalp, waiting for that very day when she allows herself to shake it loose once more.

Lyell beckons her to the piano bench after one particularly inspiring rehearsal, and, after she has sat beside him, whispers shyly, "I've always wanted to do this."

And he _pulls _the blue velvet ribbon off the end of her wheat-colored braid, and twines tendrils of her hair round his fingers, feeling its sunny weight pull down the length of her back.

Titania looks back at him, fascinated by a lapful of blonde hair, and lets the weight of her hair pull her to the rafters, skyrocketing alive with love.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**V: m o s s o **__[movement]_

There's a senior named Dorothy DeVere who transfers to the academy when Titania is sixteen. She is tiny, with short, nervous blonde hair and longish bangs, frightened amber eyes and bitten fingernails. She is just _that _much better at the violin than Titania, and, for some reason, Titania doesn't mind when little Dorothy claims first chair violin that year. Titania just smiles in congratulation at her and sinks gracefully down to her seat at second.

"Call me Dot," Dorothy says.

Titania grins back and says, "Good job."

She doesn't feel so happy, however, when tiny Dot is waylaid by Harold Bloor, who cozies up to her, like a cat, and plays the gentleman while Dot is all flustered and starry-eyed and love-struck.

Venetia Yewbeam watches all this from a shadowy corner, and, fluttering long fingers at Titania as she passes by, deliberately tosses a lovely yellow satin ribbon at Dot's feet. The girl cannot resist, and Titania knows from the look on everyone's face that this is one of those disgusting magical garments that Venetia does.

Harold follows Venetia down the corridor to the east wing bedrooms like a lovesick idiot; Titania can almost see him foaming at the mouth. Dot sticks behind, looking sad and lost and entirely out of her element. Titania's stomach twists as she gently pries the ribbon out of Dot's hands and helps her gather her books before tossing the ribbon in a muddy patch of the grounds, where it soaks up dirty water like blood to a sponge.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

On All Soul's Day, they play the Saturday night mass and Lyell smiles goodbye, concerned at the prospects of letting her walk home on her own in the dark. Titania smiles back and flits away through the night, her head held high and her back straight, pinpointing with hard delight.

Mara is slumped in the foyer beside the door of the flat; Titania reaches down to help her mother up, and sees the tears in the woman's eyes, dripping like glass down her face. "It's okay, Mum, c'mon, we'll get you inside…"

Once in the flat and cozy up on the loveseats with tea and biscuits, Titania says, "Mum, what's wrong?"

Mara sniffles, parched, then says, "It has begun."

Titania knows not to interrupt. Mara continues, "There are always girls born into this family. These girls inherit the magic so prized by our ancestress, Lilith. And these girls find love with one person at an early age. They are connected to this person with invisible threads—it is almost impossible to break free."

"But—but, when she marries her sweetheart and has a baby girl, the man is frightened—and he leaves her—and she loses her love, forever. And, and—as her child grows and her powers develop, slowly, the mother descends into madness—until she has lost her magic. Forever."

Mara hiccups, rocking back and forth and wailing softly, her eyes a dead calm. "The magic can only belong to one of us at once. That is the way of it—it is passed on—never divided and never multiplied. It just _is, _and there is no other way around it."

Titania gasps, shocked. "But—but—what would happen if this girl were not to marry this one—love?"

Mara shakes her head. "Alas, it cannot be told. It has never happened before."

Titania clenches the muscles in her throat and tries not to cry. For, even if she had two choices in life, neither one of them involved Lyell.

She clears her throat, mad with disappointment, and says, "So we are cursed. Cursed to be without love, forever."

Mara nods sagely. "Yes. To be without love—" She stops, choking down another sob, then ends— "It is the worst curse of all."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Venetia Yewbeam stops her at school one day and hisses, "We're alike, you and I. Both witches, both hopelessly in love with boys who'll never have us."

Titania is outraged. "No, stop! Let—me—go!" Finally she breaks free from Venetia's iron grip on her wrist, then walks away swiftly, her footfalls loud on the tile floor.

They are so loud that they almost drown up the sound of Venetia's mad laughter, echoing all about the cavernous building and dragging Titania down with skillful, spindly fingers.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

On her seventeenth birthday, Lyell turns about from the piano bench when she comes in for rehearsal, and says, "Why don't we skip it today? It is your day, after all. You should spend it as you please."

Titania smiles, delighted, and takes Lyell's hand. He is not surprised, but squeezes back and holds on a little harder. They drift down to the flower stall, and he insists upon buying her a calla lily.

Pinning it in her hair, he says, "These are my favorite flowers, you know. I see them and think of you, and so every time I see a calla lily, I am the happiest man alive."

He kisses her cheek, softly and sweetly, and her heart swells so that she wrenches her head back and laughs, the glorious peals of it passing the unfathomable summer sky.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Nothing would have changed had she not tripped over a prostrate music stand in the organ loft one day and fallen—hard—towards the ground, her leg tangled up in her skirt and her arms flailing. She is sure she will hit the carpet—her face all bloody and her leg at a horribly awkward angle—but Lyell steps into her path, surprised and not quite sure of what he is doing, and catches her just before it is too late. They stop, their bodies all smushed against one another, their noses and mouths mere centimeters away. Titania fits perfectly against him, and for a moment, they stare round-eyed at each other, breathing in frightening gasps and shell-shocked beyond belief.

All at once, she feels that if she doesn't do something _now, _all will be lost. So she takes a breath, fluttery, while he just stares at her, and—

—puts her mouth close to his ear, shaking, and breathes, "Have you ever wanted someone so badly—so badly it hurts?"

Lyell smiles a little and says, "Yes, I have."

And suddenly he is kissing her, better and warmer than she's ever imagined, because this is the first time he or she has been kissed in their whole _life—_and carries her over to the organ bench, and sets her down, and whispers low while he unbuttons her blouse.

They make love for the first time, clumsily, on that organ bench just as the cathedral bells toll four 'o clock. When they are done, they both redden and avert their gazes, but not before Lyell can bite back the words: "I love you—"

She smiles and says, "I suppose that I love you too."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**VI: a s s a i **__[as if]_

Lyell goes away after senior year, because he's been accepted to the most prestigious college in the country. He's going to study the piano. Titania shrugs, pretending she's too stupid for college, and resigns herself to taking classes at the local university, which has a moderately good music program.

The day of his departure, he hugs her and kisses her earlobe—_that's an odd place to kiss someone, _she thinks—and says, "I'll miss you."

She waves, happy, and screams, "Don't forget me! I love you."

The train whistle blows and he smiles and disappears little by little, and Titania tells herself that he didn't hear her—for if he had, he certainly would have given love back.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

After four years at university, Titania plays a master concert and, afterwards, finds Doctor Saltweather in the audience.

She smiles, polite, and asks after his health and the school and –_nothing at all—_and he says, "What would you say to teaching orchestra at the academy?"

She shrugs, pretending she has nothing better to do, and accepts—but really she is thinking of Lyell and his two-year stint in the London philharmonic, and promising herself, _Just two years, and then he will come home for you._

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

And two years later, he does. He calls her up at home and, when Mara drops the phone in apparent shock, Titania scoops it up with a shriek of, "Lyell!"

He takes her for coffee, and though they talk and laugh as they've always done, she can't shake the feeling that something is wrong. But she smiles sweetly and plays the fool and pretends she doesn't notice—until he stops her and says, "Titania, I'm going to be married."

For a moment, she forgets to breathe. The world seems to have gone upside-down, and she staggers over to a park bench. He comes and sits beside her, patting her shoulder awkwardly.

She looks up at him, knowing that her face is already streaked with tears, and says, "But… but I thought…"

"Titania, that was years ago! We were teenagers, we thought we were in love…"

"Oh," she laughs, hollow. "Oh. I didn't know that since we were teenagers, it wasn't real."

He grimaces, shaking his head and pulling at his hair, nervous for the first time in his life. "Titania! I mean, I couldn't ask you to wait for me—"

She stands, clenching her fists until her nails bite through the skin and elicit hot blood. "Yes. Yes, you could." She sobs again, then turns and walks away, her elegant figure crumpled and hunched.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

When Titania gets home, she pulls a blade from the dresser, and, unthinking, draws it close over her forearm, watching the scarlet of the blood pool forth.

She lets the open wound bleed and goes about her business, fetching an embossed wedding invitation from the mailbox and setting a sapphire dress out on the windowsill.

The blood doesn't stop for hours. Finally, she sighs, and, whispering soft to herself, the wound bleeds clean and she falls to sleep for days, dizzy with dull sorrow.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The wedding is beautiful. The bride's golden-brown hair is shiny and her cheeks rosy, and she almost looks pretty. The groom is long-legged and elegant and handsome. That day, he is the happiest man in the world.

In the front row, the five Yewbeams are perched: Grizelda, sobbing quietly into a handkerchief, Lucretia and Eustacia, whispering slyly to one another, beautiful Venetia, clutching her younger brother Paton's arm to her, who only sits and stares, looking rather happy, his eyes as big as dinner plates behind the dark glasses.

Harold and Dorothy Bloor sit right behind the Yewbeams, looking crisp and polished. Harold, the new headmaster of the academy, seems to have retained very little of his sparse looks, but is still starched and pressed to near-perfection. Dot's blonde hair seems to have grown paler with age, but her cheeks are pink with happiness, as if she is oblivious to her husband's chilly stare. She clutches a small black-haired boy in her lap, who whispers to her throughout the service, making her giggle and kiss his tiny forehead.

Titania watches the whole thing from the organ loft, her pale curls falling past her waist and the sapphire dress clinging to her slender frame. She sings a _Pie Jesu _for the service, and though almost everyone's eyes are riveted to her, she cannot help but feel her heart breaking.

On the altar, Lyell kisses his bride and she smiles back at him. Neither one can hear the melody.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**VII: g r a v e **__[solemn]_

The day Mara dies, Titania cannot help but laugh.

She had been right all along.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The new shop-boy's name is Tilpin. He grins at Titania and tells her that she's hot.

Brittle, she smiles back, and remembers Lyell's words: _"You're beautiful."_

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The instant she steps into the organ loft during one of Lyell's inspiring rehearsals, she knows that it was a mistake.

He stops playing, frowning to himself, then says, "What is it, Titania?"

She looks at the floor, clenching her fists nervously. "It's just… just…"

Drawing a breath, she forces herself to remember why she came—but discards the planned pleasantries, and instead bursts out with, "What was _wrong _with me?"

Lyell sighs, morose. "Titania, I'm sorry. But you were _bad._"

"_Bad?!_"

"Wicked, I mean." She hadn't known he didn't conform to his family's ideas. Not until now.

She wants to say, _"Well, I'm sorry for being magic," _but instead, smiles and says, "Thanks. I'm sorry, too." She turns, and walks down the steps for the last time, vowing that she will never use magic again.

Love crumples like exquisite sixteenth notes in her ears all the way home.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

One Friday, she stumbles to Dr. Bloor's office, and tells him, "I know of a man who opposes you. You should… bring him here."

Titania doesn't like the way the man's eyes gleam with malice. It's too late, though. She smiles, vindictive, and tells him all she knows.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

She reads of tragedies in the papers every day now: a beautiful woman's tragic death at 9 Darkly Wynd, the eerie capture of a two-year old child, the death of a talented pianist who drove his car into an overpass.

All Titania can do is sit by the cracked mirror and stare at her reflection through the dust. Her beautiful hair is pale and shimmery, her eyes bright and lustrous, her skin still young and taut. She stares and stares at the girl in the mirror, and realizes that she has never known who she really is.

_Who's hiding beneath that pretty face? Is there anything of value under there? _

She thinks that she has gone mad.

Suddenly, she flies at her reflection with a vengeance, slapping her hands hard against the cool glass and clawing desperately and screaming, the white noise filling her ears until she can hear nothing else at all.

_Let me in let me in let me in—_

The mirror shatters, and she draws away, sobbing, staring at the shards of shredded glass embedded in her palms.

It doesn't hurt. She draws a hand across her cheek, feeling the glass rip her skin, and lets the blood run, turning white to red.

She remembers Mara telling her, _Break a mirror and you've got seven years bad luck! _but Titania figures she could break a thousand mirrors and still have the same perpetual fate.

It's all the same—seven years or seven thousand—because even a moment feels like an eternity without him.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_**VIII: **__**f i n e **__[end]_

Of course, Lyell is at Bloor's. They call him Mr. Pilgrim now. He sits at the piano all day and plays the most beautiful, achingly sad melodies. Titania tells herself over and over that this is all he really wanted.

She'll stumble up to the music tower and kiss his handsome mouth and caress his black hair and stare into his wide, dead eyes. Some days, he asks her if they have met. Some days, she answers _No. _

But some days, she cannot stop from telling him the truth.

And he looks at her and she looks at him and the world shatters, upside down and inside out and just so _full _of the lovely music.

It's all they can hear, and everything they could hope to remember.

So even through the despairing warped nightmare that is life, they look at each other.

And they find death staring back.

_[you are my entity]_

_end _

_

* * *

_

Um. Well, I pretty much loved doing this one. Did you see Zelda's mum? I'm thinking about doing a PatonAmy, crazy though it sounds *cringes* because, really—why not?


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